Life for Archie takes a dramatic turn when his mum tells him and his sister that effectively they are homeless and they have to move into emergency accommodation organised by the council. Archie is instructed by his sister not to reveal that they have had to move to a home that is not a home and so he becomes removed from his friends - no longer accepting  invites to sleepovers or parties just in case he has to reciprocate which naturally he wouldn't be able to do according to his sister. He is perpetually tired, unable to concentrate at school and worst of all no one sees him anymore. He is literally no longer visible to anyone other than his mum and sister and Zofia - a girl who also lives at the B&B for the homeless and who is treat as though she is invisible.
Archie tries to navigate his way though this new existance and is helped by Zofia. One day the class discover their fundraising money is missing and the finger of blame is laid on Callum Critchlow, a boy who is always in trouble for one thing or another. Zofia decides that she and Archie should help Callum and prove his innocence before he is excluded. What follows is a thoughtful tale about ensuring that everyone is seen, that everyone should be valued regardless of background, circumstance, career or something else and that no one should feel that they don't matter or that they are not important.
Thank you to NetGalley and Firefly for this e-ARC to review.

What a powerful book this is. Definitely one that should be in every year 6 classroom.

Archie is funny, popular - he has it all. But when they face eviction and his family ends up living in a B&B for homeless families things change.

Suddenly, he finds that his friends are becoming more distant, his family more stressed and eventually that he’s invisible. But is he invisible because of where he lives or because he’s been holding in a secret afraid of how others will judge him?

This story explores the way we judge and treat others, the classroom dynamics and friendship groups and how sometimes we need someone to show us the positives in ourselves and others.

In a time where more and more families are facing difficult times this is a great book for highlighting these issues in an accessible and sensitive way.

Archie seems to have the perfect life and he's happy with school, friends and family, and his cat, Dinger. Then everything changes when Archie and his family lose their home.

With his mum and sister, Archie has to leave behind everything he loves, including his cat. Then, as he tries to adjust it seems like he's becoming invisible.

Archie's mum has been served notice by their landlord. He wants to sell the house so the family has eight weeks to leave. There's nothing available in their price range so they go to the council for help and are put into B&B accommodation. This is two bus rides from Archie's school and smelly, noisy and dirty. They have one room, no cooking facilities and a shared bathroom.

Neither Archie nor his sister Izzy cope well but then Archie sees someone from his school also living at the B&B. She is a Polish girl called Zofia and she tells Archie that their changed circumstances mean they are now invisible to their former schoolfriends. After this initial shock, Archie and Zofia decide to use their invisibility for good.

This is a brilliant book with such a powerful message. It is a fabulously warm, funny and fast-paced adventure which nevertheless highlights how easy it is for a family to become homeless, the conditions they are then likely to face, and how friends and colleagues may respond. It's aimed at readers aged 8-12 and is moving, uplifting and thought-provoking. I loved it.

This was a great book with excellent writing and themes. Archie was a relatable and great protagonist that I liked reading about! The plot was meaningful and I enjoyed it. Overall this was a great read!

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc!

Archie Ebbs is the class joker. He has a great life – his friends love him, he has a great family including his cat and he’s great at jokes. But Archie knows it won’t last as he and his family begin to face uncertain times…and there’s the small problem that Archie feels like he’s disappearing. Why can’t anyone see him?

Has Anyone Seen Archie Ebbs deals with an extremely sensitive topic – one that faces many children around the country, but is rarely talked about in children’s literature. The idea of homelessness and emergency accommodation and how a young person might deal with it is a tough topic to handle, but this was definitely done carefully and respectfully in a way that will open many children’s eyes. Whilst this is a sensitive issue, many other parts of the book were filled with humour and lightened the story considerably.

The eponymous Archie Ebbs is a mostly likeable protagonist (although a bit arrogant to begin with!) and it’s easy to feel his plight as he turns invisible due to his situation. As a reader, I felt great frustration for him and desperately wanted him to speak to someone about what was going on – the idea that the teachers don’t know does seem completely odd! Another character I enjoyed was the persistent Clint who would not give up on the Ebbs family and I’m glad that this relationship was depicted with the boy being like this, rather than the teenage girl. Zofia too was an intriguing character and a comfort to Archie when he needed someone to help identify with.

A touching story dealing with serious issues. 4 out of 5 stars.

Has Anyone Seen Archie Ebbs?

An engrossing story, packed with wholly relatable fun characters, brilliantly crafted around the very real-world painful truths of what life is like for a family when they become evicted and homeless. And more than that, what it's like to be friendless and overlooked — to be invisible in a crowded room. I'd be truly surprised if this doesn't become an instant favourite for readers and teachers alike.

Archie Ebbs is one of the most popular kids in his year six class. He loves telling jokes – good and cringeworthy – and making crazy homemade movies with his pals. Life is, to sum it up, great. But when he, his mother, and sister, Izzy, are evicted from their family home and have to enter temporary accommodation, his whole life takes a plunge.

Manton House, their 'temporary' home, is a rundown set of apartments set across three floors, right at the edge of town. The graffiti under the sign, says it all – 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here'.

Having had to give up his cat, Dinger, there is a reluctant realisation that, as his sister insists, he needs to keep his friends at bay too. The embarrassment would be too much, at least for Izzy, who ditches her boyfriend to avoid losing him when he sees their plight.

With no wifi to talk to his friends, and having turned down sleepovers and visits, Archie soon discovers his friends seem to be ignoring him. In fact, soon they and his teachers don't seem to be able to see him at all! As things get progressively worse in Manton House, Archie makes a surprising new friend in the basement laundry room, Zofia. She happens to be in the same class as Archie, and has been for the last two years, and yet, he can't recall seeing her at all. Like Archie, she has truly become invisible to everyone but her family.

From this one event comes the rebirth, rise of Archie Ebbs. Of course, along the way, there is fun to be had, as well as rescuing Dinger from Mrs Watts' house. And then there's the matter of a large sum of money, destined to pay for the end of school celebration, that has been stolen from their classroom.

A five star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read and recommendation.

The message about homelessness presented by this book is a very important one and I love that we have books focused on issues like this. However, I found the book itself to be very forgettable. I just couldn't really connect with the book all that much. I did feel for Archie but I just either didn't care about or like any of the other characters. Overall, this book just wasn't for me but I do hope that we continue to see more books featuring this topic.

Archie Ebbs has a pretty nice, normal life until his family can no longer afford their home and they are moved into a B&B. Archie and his sister Izzy don't want anyone to know what's going on. Izzy pushes her boyfriend away and posts photos of other people's houses as her own on social media and Archie withdraws from his friends. When he can't sleep one night, he wanders down to the B&B laundry room and meets Zofia, who he knows but can't quite remember and it turns out that they both have rather a lot in common.

I really enjoyed this book and found the way that homelessness was presented, really interesting.

This is definitely a book that I'll be adding to the selection at school.

I found Has Anyone Seen Archie Ebbs a really interesting book. It deals with something I've really not seen handled in middle grade fiction before, the idea of a family falling off the bottom of the housing ladder, being placed in emergency accommodation and all that comes with it. And I felt like it handled this really, really well. There was Archie's confusion and upset about why this was happening to them, and his worries about their cat, left behind with a neighbour and how he would cope. There was his sister's sense of shame, that she couldn't possibly let anyone in school see where she was living, pushed to a (very believable) extreme of posting social media photos of them outside other houses, and pushing her boyfriend away so that he doesn't see her there.. There was also their mother's reactions, anger and resentment at the unhelpful council officers, and her sense of failure, that she'd let her family down badly. I thought this whole element of the book was fantastic.

Speaking of the fantastic, there's another major element to this book, that does push it into the realm of fantasy. Archie turns invisible. His schoolfriends and teachers can no longer see him, though his family can, as can the other "social reject" in his class, a refugee girl living in the same crappy B&B. I honestly found this part of the book really weird., and it felt like we were expected to just accept an awful lot without explanation. Why does Archie have to self-register every morning if no one can remember that he's supposed to be a pupil there? No one ever comments on him missing class. It's not just that he's invisible, it's like he's always ceased to be, all of a sudden. Then he comes back, in the middle of giving a speech, and no one says "Where did you come from?" They all just accept that he's part of the class just as quickly and easily as they accept that he wasn't. It feels like there was a great metaphor for people becoming invisible, that was pushed into them actually being invisible, but it still feels pretty rough around the edges. I like it as an idea, I'd just like to have seen a little more about what's happening in other people's perception of him, past and present.

One standout part of the book, however, was the treatment of the class bully, the disruptive element of the class always in trouble. Showing us some of his private life and why he is the way he is was beautifully done.

Oh, and the graffiti on the book cover? They maybe need to be a bit more careful with the letter spacing. When you have a character called Clint, you have to watch that kerning!

Archie Ebbs says of himself early on that his life couldn't get any better. He has a good group of friends; together they have created an online game – Awesomeopolis, receiving many views and acclaim. However, one evening after Archie’s suspicions are roused because his sister is being nice to him, Archie’s Mother tells him that they have to move out of their rented house, loved and familiar to Archie. Archie carries on with his friends, filming more sequences for their game and joining in the teasing of Callum in class. But when his Mum meets him from school with his sister one day and they have to visit the council offices to ask to go on the waiting list for a home, Archie starts to worry. This isn’t lessened when they move out of their loved house and see the temporary accommodation of one filthy room in a tower block. Unable to sleep that night because of his sister’s snoring inches away from his head, Archie pads down to the laundry room. There he is greeted by name by a girl claiming to be invisible. When he asks why he could then see her and she suggests that he too has become invisible Archie scoffs at the idea. However this is not as silly as it seems and Archie discovers the truth in her claim.
Only with help from this new friend and the realisation that others too have a home life quite apart from the picture projected at school does Archie’s life eventually get back on track.
Very touching.

I didn't really enjoy the first chapter of this book. To be honest, I didn't much like Archie - bit too cocky and full of himself. I'm 40 years older than the target audience though so maybe a child reader would like him better. I imagine he's the sort of kid many children would love to be friends with. He's obviously popular.
But then when Archie's family get evicted from their rental house and find themselves living in a B&B, I really warmed to him and to the book. Then it gets revealed that all of Archie's jokes and seeking to make his classmates laugh was really about hiding his anxiety and I realised that I hadn't seen him properly - bit ironic but I won't say why as I don't want to spoil the story for anyone else. He really is a lovely, little character and this is a lovely book. It has real depth - by the time I was a couple of chapters in, I loved it. Would definite recommend it to primary aged children.